FAQs

Cycle for Autism is a fundraising challenge to cycle 10km, 80km or set your own distance. We encourage anyone and everyone to sign up, get active and raise funds to support autism!  You can cycle outdoors or on an exercise bike indoors at home or at the gym!

It's easy to get involved:

• Click the 'Register' button above
• Once you have completed your registration, personalise your fundraising page with a photo and some personal words too
• Share your page with your family, friends and colleagues
• Get Cycling!

Cycle for Autism is a fundraising challenge.  So as soon as your online fundraising page reaches £20, we will send you a Cycling for Autism T-shirt to say "keep up the good work and thank you!"  Pop your T-shirt on and take that all important selfie and share it with friends and family and let's see how much money you can raise.  We are sending the T-shirts out with Royal Mail so you should receive your T-Shirt within 7 days of your fundraising page hitting £20.

Every pedal turn counts.....and so does every penny.

It's important to fundraise no matter how big or small to help us provide the best possible opportunities for autistic people.  

There's no minimum sponsorship required but every penny counts so please try your best.  

Start by making a personal donation to your page -  show everyone you share your page with how much you care and this will encourage them to support you.  

We really appreciate fantastic fundraisers like you! You are raising vital funds for autism projects in the UK and Ireland whilst sharing autism acceptance and understanding.

You can do this!

• You will recieve a confirmation text and email with a sponsorship form attached
• Your T-shirt and another sponsorship form will be sent out as soon as your fundraising page reaches £20.  
• It's a virtual event so keep in touch on social media @wecycleforautism and use #wecycleforautism
• We'll keep in touch with a few texts and emails but don't worry, you'll love our inspiring words!  

Yes you can cycle as a team!  This is a great way to motivate each other!  You can cycle together or individually, but taking on Cycle for Autism as a team creates comaradary and you can cheer each other on sharing your pedal power and your fundraising power!

You can link your individual pages together and create a team page.  Your team page can create a cool team name and this team page accepts donations as well as your individual fundraising pages.  The team page totals all the teams totals together with donations made to the team page.

The easiest way to create a team page is when you are registering as an individual.  At a point in the registration process you will see a prompt 'Do you want to create a team?'.  Follow the instructions and invite your friends to join you either by email, SMS or Facebook.

When your friends accept your invitation to join your team they will create their own individual fundraising page too.

Please remember that your Cycle for Autism T shirt is scheduled to be sent out to you when you hit £20 on your individual page (not the team page).

If you decide to create a team after you have completed your individual fundraising page, just log in to your page and go into the 'Dashboard' area of your page and select 'Creat a team' and follow the instructions there. Invite people to join your team from your page.

GO TEAM! 

You can do this! 

It’s easy! 

Use your phone to track your km's with MapMyFitness, FitBit or Garmin - you can download these free Apps from your online store of choice.  

You can alter the measure from miles to km's on the settings if required.  You can also select the 'spinning' option on your FitBit to track you km's while using an exercise bike.

Both FitBit, Garmin and MapMyFitness connect to your fundraising page so they can collate your cycling km's straight to your fundraising page - how cool is that!  

Please note, you can add km's manually on to your fundraising page and the km's appear straight away.  However, if you sync an app your cycling km's will appear on your page the following day.

We hope we have covered everything. Whoever you are and wherever you are in the UK you can take part easily!

Let's face it, some people just prefer to deal with cash. If you recieve cash, of course you'll want to add the amount to your page, so the best thing to do is keep the money or bank it and make a personal donation with your own bank card for the same amount to your page.

This means the total showing on the home page as 'raised so far' is accurate. If you are unable to do this, please contact us at hello@cycleforautism.co.uk and we can help you.

Yes you can! So don't forget to send the link to your page to all those long lost relatives who live in other countries! The payment default sign shows as £, no matter what currency, so don't worry about that. Card payments are accepted from 171 countries, likewise with Paypal.

Make sure you share your page using the share option on your page. This sits just below the donate button. If you copy and paste the url of your fundraising page, you will not trigger the badge.  You must share through the website. When you log into your page you will see the option to share via Facebook, Twitter, email, SMS, Linkedin or WhatsApp.

If your badge is still not showing it may be due to the security settings on your device, do not worry, please send us an email and we can help.

The activity tracker on the home page will be live from Friday 7 July to Friday 14 July.  The activity tracker will combine all our super cyclers' km's into one grand total.  So please make sure you add your km's to your page during the cycling week.  If you sync with Fitbit your km's will be automatically added to your page during the cycling week. If you sync with Strava you may have to convert your miles into km's and add them manually to your page.

Cycling 10km (which is approx. 6.4 miles) will take between 45 minutes to an hour at a leisurely speed.  If it is a flat route and you are a confident cyclist you could ride this distance in a speedy 30 minutes ... but what's the rush ... take your time and enjoy your daily 10km Cycle for Autism ride.

If you are using another activity tracker you can also add the km's to your page.  Just click on your profile pic (or on your name if on mobile) which is in the top right corner of your page and then click on My Fitness Activity.  You can change your km's target here too - so if your chosen challenge is too much (or not enough for you), simply amend the target and then add your ride km's. This will then be counted on the km's Tracker on the home page during the cycling week.

Some of our super cyclers are interested in producing their own hoodies to keep them warm while doing their cycle rides on cool mornings.  We do not endorse the use of the logo in this way.  So please continue to wear your official T-shirts with pride!

There was an issue logging cycling km's at the start of the cycling week so we had to remove the circle of miles from your pages as it was confusing the km's input system.    

So whereas you add km's to your page in My Fitness Activity, when you view this page to see your cycling activity on your mobile, it shows 0.  Please view your cycling km's on your Dashboard.  You can take screenshots and update your supporters with your progress.

Our basic advice is:

• Make sure you can be seen and wear bright clothes such as your blue Cycle For Autism T-shirt that's ideal!
• Wear a helmet.
• Take a drink and an extra layer, plus some money and your phone

For the bike:

• Check your brakes work well
• Rub, clean and oil your chain with a few drops of oil
• Pump up your tyres so they feel like an apple and not soft like an orange

If you are unsure book your bike in for a safety check/service at a local bike shop. Alternatively pick up some handy hints to do it yourself from Cycling UK

• For great advice to help you get started
• Including essential riding advice
• Local clubs
• Plus basic maintenance guides and much more check out: https://www.cyclinguk.org/advice-beginners

Make your journey more pleasant by planning a route away from busy roads e.g. try canal tow paths or tracks nearby or visit Sustrans

Find a safe route - the National Cycle Network is a UK-wide network of signed paths and routes for walking, cycling, wheeling and exploring outdoors: Sustrans